Get away sounded like a conspiracy, and my uneasiness grew.
She gave me no time for doubting. “Vivian has taken Jilly down to the car. Julian feels this house isn’t safe for her right now. Though Oriana would never believe that. Let Stephen have his dancer to himself. She’ll be told that this trip was planned ahead of time—and I don’t think she’ll care.”
Jilly sat waiting alone in Meryl’s car. I was to drive my own car, so I wouldn’t be tied down in Charlottesville.
At least I was leaving Stephen and Oriana behind, and I needn’t be near whatever was happening between them.
14
I arrived at Everett’s impressive brick house right behind Meryl. It stood at the top of a winding road in one of Charlottesville’s residential sections.
A white portico opened into a hallway, graciously wide, that cut through to glass doors at the far end, through which I could see a rear terrace. On one wall of the hallway hung a collection of guns of every type, belonging, of course, to Everett.
Meryl saw my look and nodded wryly. “The great white hunter! Hunting’s an admired sport around here. Of course there’s the virtue of bringing home venison but I suspect that the fun for Everett lies in the killing.”
Her tone disturbed me. No one should stay with a partner who arouses so much bitter emotion.
On our left a white stairway, carpeted in dark maroon, curved upward and Jilly ran upstairs at once. She’d hardly spoken since I’d joined them, but halfway up she stopped and looked down at Meryl.
“Which room do you want Lynn to have?”
“Why don’t you pick one for her, Jilly? You know which ones are the guest rooms.”
Jilly brightened a little. “Then I’ll choose the one next to mine. Come up, Lynn, and I’ll show you.”
I wanted to talk with Meryl, but that could wait, and she nodded to me. “Go on up, Lynn. I’ll have your bag brought in. I want to phone Everett and let him know we have house guests. Dinner’s around six-thirty.” As usual, she had put off telling Everett.
On the second floor a spacious hallway again divided the house. Jilly’s room, where she apparently often stayed, was at the rear corner—a large, bright room with windows on two sides looking out over the city.
“This really is my room,” Jilly said. “Aunt Meryl let me pick out everything for myself. So I made it a sort of forest room.”
I admired Jilly’s fern-covered wallpaper and sprigged green quilt. A primrose motif tinted the upholstery and the soft yellow rug. This seemed a far more personal room than any in Stephen’s house. Small, carved wooden animals from Africa marched along the mantel, and beneath, green tiles framed the fireplace.
Once more, a color photograph of Oriana hung on the wall, though this time a younger Jilly had been included in the photo.
“My mother had that dress made for me just like hers,” Jilly said. “Those are Indian costumes—Hindu, really. She had that picture taken at the same time she had the one made for my father’s room.”
She studied the photograph for a moment as though she wanted to say something more—and then let it go.
“If you like, Lynn, you can have the next room. Uncle Everett and Aunt Meryl’s rooms are at the front of the house. So I won’t bother anyone back here.” She spoke with a certain apathy now, as though her own words no longer interested her.
“I shouldn’t think you’d be a bother,” I said. “And I’ll love being in the next room.”
Once more I felt angry with all of them for what had been done to this little girl. Somehow I must open up the painful festering she kept hidden so deeply and find its source. I hoped this trip away from her father’s house would bring her some release from whatever troubled her.
The room she’d chosen for me was attractive and again much less impersonal than the rooms I occupied at Stephen’s. It had soft gray-blue wallpaper with white flocking, and the neutral carpet was deep-piled. Both furniture and spread echoed the white and blue.
“A lovely room,” I told Jilly. “Though I’m not quite sure why I’m here. Everything has happened so quickly.”
Jilly regarded me, still grave. “I told Aunt Meryl I wouldn’t come unless you could come too.”
This was both surprising and touching. “Thank you, Jilly. I’m glad if we can be friends.”
“I told her about the rock,” she went on. “Maybe we can leave my door open tonight, Lynn?”
“Of course. If you like.”
She nodded as if reassured. “Then nothing bad can happen to me, can it? And if I have a gruesome dream, you could come in and talk to me?”
“Of course, Jilly. Do you have gruesome dreams?”
“Sometimes,” she said, and withdrew into her room, closing the door softly after her.
I was left to consider the picture she’d drawn for me of a child who was afraid and haunted. From the first I’d sensed her fear—but of what? Of whom? A new uneasiness about Meryl and Everett grew in me. Meryl might scorn her husband, but she might also feel bound to follow where he led because of her own uncertain situation.
It was time to change for dinner, so I showered in the bathroom across the hall—a bathroom I would share with Jilly—and put on the one dress I’d brought with me, a cream-colored wool knit with a draped front and brown suede belt. Simple and rather elegant, yet something I could be comfortable in. I clipped on brown agate earrings, the big stones set in gold. Thinking of Julian, I wondered what powers agate might have for my well-being. Tonight I dressed for myself—perhaps to give me courage to get through whatever an evening with Everett and Meryl might bring. I couldn’t imagine two brothers more totally different than Stephen and Everett, yet Stephen had always respected his older brother.
Just as I was ready, Jilly tapped on my door. Her look approved of me. “I guess we have to go down, Lynn.” Her own “dressing up” had been to put on fresh jeans and a pullover sweater. “Uncle Everett doesn’t like me to wear pants for dinner,” she announced. “But I don’t think he’ll send me upstairs while you are here.”
Her baiting was deliberate, yet how could I blame her, since I’d had a few glimpses of Everett’s tyranny.
We went down the lovely white staircase together. In the living room a fire had been lighted, and Meryl and Everett were finishing before-dinner drinks. I wanted a clear head and would settle for wine with my meal. I could feel the tension in the air as we went in to dinner, and I suspected that Everett was anything but pleased with his wife’s houseguests. Under the surface there often seemed a clash for power between these two, yet neither appeared willing to go too far in trying to thwart the other.
At least, Everett made a slight effort in my direction, seating me at the oval table in the gracious dining room. Arched windows looked out upon city lights spread across Charlottesville. Mountains farther away than those around us in Nelson County stood dark against a sky in which traces of pink still lingered.
The house was well staffed, in contrast to the limited help Julian and Vivian managed with at The Terraces. Everett liked to patronize Virginia wines and my glass of white wine came from the Shenandoah vineyards, he said. Unfortunately, I hardly knew what I ate or drank that night.
The strain I’d sensed was still evident and Meryl seemed edgy and nervous, while Everett was watchful. Perhaps he suspected some collusion between us. I found myself waiting for this suppressed emotion to crack open at any moment. Jilly helped the feeling along in her not-too-subtle efforts to annoy her uncle.
When she managed to spill her glass of water, tipping it in Everett’s direction, he set down his fork in exasperation and spoke to his wife.
“I don’t understand why you’ve brought Jilly here when her mother has just arrived at home.”
This wasn’t the way Jilly should have been told, and I looked across the table at her uneasily. If she’d heard, she gave no sign, but stared at her plate and continued to eat rather stolidly while spilled water was mopped up by the woman serving us.
> Meryl answered him calmly enough. “Julian felt that Oriana and Stephen should have some time alone. There are matters that need to be settled—what with Julian and Vivian about to move out, and Paul and Carla leaving as well.”
“What is there to discuss?” Everett asked. “The house will be closed up, of course.”
Still Jilly showed no sign of interest in what was being said.
“How is Stephen holding up?” Everett asked.
Meryl looked at me slyly. “Perhaps Lynn can tell you. I understand she and Stephen had an outing this morning. To White Moon.”
Everett stared at me. “Was that wise? To take him there?”
“We were looking for Jilly,” I said. “And we found her. I expect it was good for Stephen to get out for a change. I have a feeling that he’s turned a corner and that he’ll progress a lot faster from now on.”
“Oriana should be pleased,” Meryl said.
It was a relief when the meal was finally over. At least I wouldn’t be expected to spend the evening with my hosts, since Meryl had procured tickets for a film festival running that week at a university theater. She and Everett left shortly after dinner.
Jilly and I settled cozily before the fire, and in a strange way, I felt more comfortable in this house, in spite of its tensions, than I did at Stephen’s, where everyone seemed shut away in private, conflicting worlds. At least the marital conflict here was fairly open. Jilly sat on a cushion before the fire, watching the flames, and she had brought the miniature quartz “mountain” downstairs with her. She held it up to the fire so that its translucence glowed with color, and she spoke to me without turning her head.
“I knew my mother had come. Everybody didn’t need to be mysterious about it and rush me away. If they’d just told me straight out, I’d still have wanted to come here for a little while.”
“Why is that, Jilly?”
“I don’t want to see her right now. Carla will tell her things about me—about the wrong way I want to dance. And she’ll be sad and disappointed. But I can’t always be the way she wants—not anymore. I really can’t!”
“How do you think she wants you to be?”
“Like her. Like that picture upstairs in my room here—where we’re dressed alike and dancing the same way. And she wants me to wear those pretty old-fashioned dresses she has made for me especially. But I can’t climb around in them outside, and Aunt Meryl says I can wear jeans if I like. Lynn, I can’t be a copy of my mother. I have to be like me—and that upsets her. Then I feel awful when she’s sad. She’s so beautiful and wonderful, and I love her very much—just the way Dad loves her. But she’s more like a—a fairy godmother than like a real mother.”
I didn’t know how to deal with this—except by being angry again with both Oriana and Stephen for being so blind. And that wouldn’t help Jilly. I knew by now that anger never solved anything—though sometimes it was useful for stirring people up!
She went on. “When I used to go to school with the other kids, their mothers were different. It’s more exciting to have a mother like Oriana Devi, but sometimes I wish—” She broke off, and then rushed on quickly. “If what Uncle Julian thinks is true—that his Amber has come back inside me—then someone I never knew is really my mother.”
“Oh, Jilly!” The wrench I felt brought tears. What she needed most just then wasn’t more words. She needed the comfort of being held by someone she loved. But she sat beside me like a little porcupine, and there was no invitation in her—not to me.
I reached into the seam pocket of my dress and drew out the two stones I’d placed there. “Look, Jilly. Julian gave back my turquoise and it’s blue again. So everything is going to be fine. And I’ve kept the rose quartz you gave me. I like to hold your pink stone and feel it warming in my hand. It comforts me more than the turquoise. Sometimes we all need to be comforted, Jilly.”
She relaxed a little, pleased about the stone. “I’m glad if it helps you, Lynn.”
We didn’t talk much after that, but sat companionably before the fire, not touching, yet somehow closer than we had been. Her attention was again on her jagged “mountain” of unpolished quartz. It seemed all peaks and steep valleys in the firelight, and I knew she was playing her game of being a tiny skier. One finger traced her course down a shiny slope, and came to a sudden stop.
“Oops! I just fell into a snowbank.”
We laughed together and for the moment we were friends.
Before we went upstairs to bed, we had a glass of hot milk together in the kitchen. Meryl’s staff had left for the night, but Jilly knew where oatmeal cookies were stored and as we ate we talked for a little while.
“I hope I won’t dream tonight,” Jilly said. “Sometimes when I close my eyes I can hear that big rock coming down the cliff. Uncle Julian said it wasn’t meant that it should hurt us—but it still scares me when I think about it.”
For a little while after the rock had fallen, I’d been able to hold her tightly in my arms, and I wished I could hold her now. But I knew very well how private a child could be, and when the offer of physical comforting wasn’t possible. Jilly was too busy protecting some deep wound to be open to me now.
“Why did you go away from my father?” she asked suddenly.
It was hard to give an honest answer—if I even knew what such an answer was. “By this time, I’m not even sure, Jilly. I suppose I was angry and jealous of your mother. I had a stubborn streak that wouldn’t let me stay if he wanted someone else. Perhaps my leaving was best for all of us. I found the work I wanted to do, and Oriana married your father. If I hadn’t gone away, perhaps you wouldn’t be here now.”
She shook her head gravely. “Uncle Julian says that if I hadn’t been born to my father and mother, I’d have chosen two other people for my parents. So I’d have been born anyway. Oh, I forgot to tell you—Uncle Julian’s coming to Charlottesville tomorrow, and he wants us to meet him. I’ll have to work it out with Aunt Meryl. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
“Of course,” I said. I still felt uncomfortable about Julian Forster’s mystical ideas, and I wished there was someone I could talk to about this. But who was there, except Julian himself?
Jilly was growing sleepy after the milk, and we went upstairs together. When she was ready for bed, I tucked her in, and even dropped a kiss on her unresisting cheek.
“I’ll open my door before I go to bed,” I promised her. “I’ll close it for a little while now, so my light won’t keep you awake.”
She seemed satisfied with this arrangement, and I was glad for some time alone before I went to bed myself. I’d discovered a small balcony outside my room, and when I’d put on a robe I stepped out into cold, sparkling air. Like every city, Charlottesville had its own voice, though it never reached the roar of New York. Because of city lights the stars weren’t as bright here as they were at Stephen’s house. This was a tree-filled city, and as I looked across it from this hilltop, dark patches of trees interrupted the light patterns of roads and traffic.
I didn’t want to think about anything. I wanted to empty my mind and feel peaceful and sleepy, and forget about Stephen and all that had happened since I came to Virginia. In my work I’d learned a number of psychological—perhaps even spiritual—devices. An unhappy thought could always be changed into something more cheerful if you took deliberate action. But somehow it was human to give in to the negative, and I couldn’t always follow my own advice.
By now I knew I hadn’t come to Virginia because of Jilly, but because I wanted to see Stephen again. I’d needed to free myself of old questions, old longings that I’d hidden from myself—something I hadn’t been able to do.
It was safer to think of Jilly and how I could help her to be rid of the deep fears that disturbed her and kept her from being all she deserved to be.
After the chilly balcony, my room seemed warm and welcoming, and I was ready to sleep. When I turned off the bed lamp and opened Jilly’s door, I stood for a moment listen
ing to her quiet breathing. Then I got beneath the blue-sprigged quilt and drowsed off quickly.
When Meryl and Everett’s car sounded on the driveway, I woke up briefly and heard them come up the stairs and go into their front room. Then I went quickly to sleep again, and if there were voices, they didn’t disturb me. Nothing disturbed me until about two in the morning when I heard the choking, fearful sounds coming from Jilly’s room.
That brought me wide awake. I turned on a light and ran across to her door. The illumination from my room showed an empty bed. Alarmed, I found a light switch and saw that she’d curled herself into a cold little knot on the hearth rug before a grate that held no fire. There she was rocking herself back and forth, moaning softly.
The sound was one of terror, and I dropped down beside her and held her gently. For a moment her eyes stared wildly up at me, and then she wound her arms around me tightly.
“I dreamt it again!” she cried. “That awful dream!”
I held her, whispering. “Can you tell me about it?”
She burrowed more deeply into my arms. “It’s that—that thing! A little black, furry thing without a face. It comes right at me and it chews on my neck. I can feel its sharp little teeth biting me, and I can’t wake up. I know it’s a dream and I can’t wake up!”
“You’re awake now, and it’s gone,” I assured her. The horrid nightmares of children were familiar to me. Sometimes they came to those who were very ill and who couldn’t deal with their waking life, let alone their nighttime dream world. I was just beginning to understand what Julian meant when he’d told me that Jilly was “dying.” If all that troubled her was not cleared up soon, the inner struggle might make her vulnerable to serious illness.
I rocked her in my arms and she clung to me, content for the moment just to be held. This was the way it had been after that boulder had fallen.
“Have you told Julian about your dream?” I asked.
“Yes. He says that sometimes there are bad spirits out there who watch for a chance to get into humans. He said I must always say a prayer before I go to sleep, so I can protect myself from what happens when I’m unconscious. Then my guardians will take care of me.”
The Singing Stones Page 19